The Rapid Growth of eSports Has Network’s Buzzing

Want to know why sports media groups are enamored with esports? According to the market intelligence company Newzoo, more than 800 million hours of esports content was watched on the streaming platform Twitch during the past 10 months. That breaks down to 80 million hours per month or roughly 2.6 million hours per day. A little more than 71% of that content comes from tournament organizers, with developer Riot Games, and third-party organizer ESL providing the majority of it.

During that 10 month period, esports content was responsible for between 14% and 31% of total viewing on Twitch. More than 110 million hours of esports were watched in August alone.

As experts try to project the future growth in the esports arena, the content continues to have mass appeal, helping companies like Twitch position themselves in strong fashion. Amazon bought the company in August 2014 for $970 million dollars, and it was ranked 4th in the United States for peak internet traffic in 2014. Those numbers have likely increased during the past two years due to the rapid interest in esports, video gaming, and pokemon marathons.

As more people flock to Twitch and invest their time in participating in esports, look for additional media companies to further invest in the space, and seek ways to become leaders in the space.